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raised in our Colonies there is a real demand for and how best it can be met by the colonial producer. We hope by this system to produce greater commercial intercourse between the Colonies and the Mother Country, which will be to the advantage of all. This is only one out of the many things— small in themselves perhaps, but important in the aggregate —which we are not merely thinking over but taking steps to put into actual operation. Any further suggestions of a kindred kind that come from the Colonies we shall be most thankful for. We have a natural preference for trading with our Colonies, and we would like to know how we could best achieve our ends in this regard in a way that would not hurt, but would rather help our people as well as yours. Now, we come to the third and undoubtedly the most momentous question of all. It is also, I need hardly say, the suggestion, the working of which is most fraught with difficulty—l will even say with danger—and it has therefore to be approached very carefully and very guardedly with a sincere desire to give it as favourable a consideration as the exigencies of our world-wide trade would justify. Tt was also put forward in the first instance by Sir Joseph Ward, and it received the suport of all those who have hitherto taken part in this great debate. I think also Mr. Deakin and Mr. Moor referred to it, and I think also Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Mr. DEAKIN : They are all parts of one policy. Mr. ASQUITH : Sir Wilfrid Laurier had already made a definite proposal on the subject, I understand ? Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : Yes, he has. It is to improve the communications for transport and transit between the Mother Country and the Colonies. Let me say now that in considering this proposal we ought at once to eliminate any idea that a policy of general subsidies would in the least degree benefit our shipping. From that point of view, it has been proved by the experience of France and other countries that any notion of helping shipping by means of general State subsidies is thoroughly unsound, and may even be disastrous; and T therefore at once dismiss any suggestion which may be made of approaching this question of improved communications from that point of view. The British Government, you may depend upon it, has gone into this matter very carefully. Tdo not mean merely the present Government. When our trade rivals are subsidising steamships, there is naturally enough a panic from time to time in this country amongst those who are financially interested in our shipping, and any momentary set back which is inflicted on our shipping is always attributed to the aggressive policy of foreign Governments. We have subsequently always found on investigation, that the extent to which foreign governments do aid their shipping has been in every case grossly exasperated. The subsidies of Germany are not, with one or two exceptions, at all considerable factors in the development of their trade. Tn fact, if you compare the subsidies of Germany with what we are giving to our shipping in the wav of payment for postal services, T do not think that they pay their shipping on ns o-enerous a scale as we do. With those one or two exceptions, which I have already mentioned, where by means in the one case of a direct subsidy to their East African line of steamers, which has now crept on to Durban, and in other cases, by means of through rates of traffic on their railway system, by which undoubtedly they are assisting, not merely their shipping, but to a much larger extent their export trader (he is the man who benefits most by that and not the shipowner) Mr. "HEAKTN : There is the extraordinary growth of the Norddeutscher Lloyd in recent years: its recent union with the Hamburcr-Amerika ; and the dividend it pays.

Eleventh Day. 6 May liter:.

kential Trade. (Mr. Lloyd George.)

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